Woozle effect
False credibility due to quantity of citations / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Woozle effect, also known as evidence by citation,[1] occurs when a source is widely cited for a claim it does not adequately support, giving said claim undeserved credibility. If results are not replicated and no one notices that a key claim was never well-supported in its original publication, faulty assumptions may affect further research.
The Woozle effect is somewhat similar to circular reporting in journalism, where someone makes a questionable claim, a journalist unthinkingly accepts it and republishes it not realizing its dubious and unreliable origins, and other journalists and the public continue to repeat and duplicate the unsupported claim.