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This seems to me to be a clear cut case of poor incentives in the academic research sector. No graduate student is incentivized to re perform existing experime
by unprepare 11y ago
This seems to me to be a clear cut case of poor incentives in the academic research sector.
No graduate student is incentivized to re perform existing experiments to verify them, no they find much more success in creating a unique experiment which tests a previously untested hypothesis.
This is modern academic science. If you aren't doing something newsworthy, you're not getting any funding.
- EdiX 11y ago>No graduate student is incentivized to re perform existing experiments to verify them If you look at how this thing with psychology started ("replication bullies") or at what Brockman said about the LaCour scandal earlier this year (he didn't pursue publication initially because he thought he'd risk his career), it's not that they aren't incentivized, it's that they are actively discouraged.
- Asbostos 11y agoNot only is lack of replication bad, but I think also excess of new research is bad too. Everybody makes their own unique study, too different to compare to existing research, too small a sample size to be reliable, too singular among thousands of equally unimportant and unreliable studies that it goes unnoticed and unused. Really, those researchers trying to do something novel but being incompetent at it, should put their skills to use replicating something else instead. Sure this would lead to them being seen as 2nd class scientists. But we still need that service, just as we still need cleaners even though they're seen as 2nd class workers. Universities are the ones providing the incentives. Their management should be stopping and thinking about if their policies are adding value to scientific knowledge or subtracting it.