P-hacking (data dredging)

Biological Parallel

Test 100 plant compounds against bacterial growth; one shows significance (p<0.05). Publish the 'discovery.' This is p-hacking—searching through data until something looks meaningful. Evolutionary biology faces the same trap: with enough traits, environments, and time scales, spurious correlations emerge. The antidote: pre-registration and replication, or in evolutionary terms, independent convergent evolution across multiple lineages.