Questioning the Experimental Protocol in Two Nobel Prizes

For discussions in the scientific community, we question the Post-Selection protocols (also known as p-hacking) in works that received the Nobel Prize in Physics 2024 and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024, as well as the current flood of Post-Selection in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning within many other disciplines of science and engineering. We hypothesize that the Post-Selection protocol has three mistakes: (a) missing a test, (b) hiding bad-looking data, and (c) exaggerating prediction accuracy. Nobel Prizes must not escape the well-known scientific laws: (1) Different initial guesses in nonlinear problems lead to different local minima. (2) Papers about nonlinear problems must explain how the authors avoided local minima. Evidence: None of the questioned papers discuss (1) and (2). Therefore, they are not scientifically ethical. However, the future of AI and machine learning seems to be bright.

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Publication Details

Published
2025-05-29
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1109/icaide65466.2025.11189692
Primary Topic
History and advancements in chemistry
Type
article
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article

Questioning the Experimental Protocol in Two Nobel Prizes

Ming Xie, Christian Schmidt, Dongshu Wang, Juyang Weng
History and advancements in chemistry
article

Questioning the Experimental Protocol in Two Nobel Prizes

Ming Xie, Christian Schmidt, Dongshu Wang, Juyang Weng
article en

Abstract

For discussions in the scientific community, we question the Post-Selection protocols (also known as p-hacking) in works that received the Nobel Prize in Physics 2024 and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024, as well as the current flood of Post-Selection in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning within many other disciplines of science and engineering. We hypothesize that the Post-Selection protocol has three mistakes: (a) missing a test, (b) hiding bad-looking data, and (c) exaggerating prediction accuracy. Nobel Prizes must not escape the well-known scientific laws: (1) Different initial guesses in nonlinear problems lead to different local minima. (2) Papers about nonlinear problems must explain how the authors avoided local minima. Evidence: None of the questioned papers discuss (1) and (2). Therefore, they are not scientifically ethical. However, the future of AI and machine learning seems to be bright.

Allen Institute for Brain Science (US), Nanyang Technological University (SG), Arts et Métiers (FR), Zhengzhou University (CN), HESAM Université (FR)
Openalex Percentile: Top 73%
History and advancements in chemistry
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