alt Hacker NewsThat, in science, is called "lying".
Either you publish the range of results, the average plus standard deviation or average plus standard deviation of a subset with the exclusion criteria and exclusion range. Picking a result is a lie, plain and simple, and messiness is not an excuse.
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mattmanser • 04/02/2025
See my comment too, you jump to lying, but as the GP said, chemistry is messy.
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Hence the crisis we have in science today.
As an aside, I'm working at a QC chem lab now, with results that have a direct impact on revenue calculations for clients. Therefore the reports go to accountants, therefore error bars dont't exist. We recently had a case where we reported 41.7 when the client expected 42.0 on a method that's +/- 1.5... They insisted we remeasure because our result was "impossible" The repeat gave 42.1, and the client was happy to be charged twice