As a follow on to my earlier posts, here’s the top ten science clichés as suggested by you and confirmed by Google Scholar. I’ve not broken it down by number of words this time, as this seemed to be less important.
1. Statistically significant 1,190,000
2. This study shows 200,000
3. Necessary but not sufficient 124,000
4. More research is needed 112,000
5. Paradigm shift 105,000
6. Physiological relevance 52,600
7. A new study 39,400
8. Implications for therapy 19,900
9. Sheds new light 17,400
10. Nature versus nurture 7650
And for the record…
Release of calcium from intracellular stores 3620
That’s still a heck of a lot of calcium release.
That last one is disturbing. Chalk one up to Henry, so to speak.
Isn’t that the origin of a cliche – a phrase whose usage becomes so repetitious that people recognise this as such?
What about those who reject clichés and say the opposite? Here’s the contrarian’s viewpoint:
Statistically insignificant 81,000
This study does not show 763
Unnecessary and sufficient 23
Less research is needed 18
Paradigm stable 36
Physiological irrelevance 21
An old study 618
No Implications for therapy 7
Sheds no light 3840
Nature with nurture 62
Maybe those seven (or was it just one person, seven times?) that dared to write “No implications for therapy” on the manuscript deserve some kind of award for sheer honesty. I mean, it takes some guts to be so brutally frank…
Curses – some of the “Less research is needed” aren’t really true, Google has ignored the punctuation.