4 ms·

A lot of scientific studies (some funded by grants) are never tested through replication, even though that's a core part of the process. Replication is the uns

A lot of scientific studies (some funded by grants) are never tested through replication, even though that's a core part of the process. Replication is the unsexy grunt work that makes science reliable, but it usually doesn't make anyone famous (or necessarily even get them tenure), because it's not bleeding edge work creating or advancing new theories. Maybe the government should treat this like a market failure and generously fund replication studies. Planet Money on the replication issue: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/01/15/463237871/episode-677-the-experiment-experiment http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/01/15/463237871/episo... Replication crisis (wikipedia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis

vph 11y ago
To be fair, scientists by and large understand the need of replication, and evaluation in general. It's just in certain fields (e.g. psychology) or circumstances with human subjects, it's very expensive or even infeasible to have well controlled repeated experiments.
- Godel_unicode 11y ago
  If you don't have well controlled, repeatable experiments (a.k.a. the scientific method) are you actually doing science? I think we should come up with another word for these types of one-off studies.
  - gumby 11y ago
    Many fields advance without solid well controlled, repeatable experiments, at least through various stages of development: cosmology, geology, most of medicine, philosophy, science of mind, etc. You don't consider those all "science"? There's more to science than Bacon.
    - freyr 11y ago
      Those fields have scientific and non-scientific components. The non-scientific parts are not science.
      - gumby 11y ago
        Your statement is tautological. You might want to read up on epistemology and the philosophy of science -- I would start with Karl Popper. As I said, Bacon is not the definition of science. Bizarrely, my unremarkable comment was downvoted!
        Godel_unicode 11y ago
        I believe you were downvoted because you were factually inaccurate about the presence of scientific studies in medicine especially. Controlled, double-blind, repeatable (from a population standpoint) studies are something medicine is good at. Note that there are counter-examples of medical studies which were poorly conducted, but realize that they are the exception not the rule.
        freyr 11y ago
        > Your statement is tautological You want to label fields that have both scientific components and non-scientific components (in varying proportions) as "science." The point of my statement is that some of those fields have scientific aspects, and there may be sub-fields I'd categorize as "science," but I wouldn't categorize the field as a whole as "science."

vph 11y ago

To be fair, scientists by and large understand the need of replication, and evaluation in general. It's just in certain fields (e.g. psychology) or circumstances with human subjects, it's very expensive or even infeasible to have well controlled repeated experiments.

Godel_unicode 11y ago
If you don't have well controlled, repeatable experiments (a.k.a. the scientific method) are you actually doing science? I think we should come up with another word for these types of one-off studies.
- gumby 11y ago
  Many fields advance without solid well controlled, repeatable experiments, at least through various stages of development: cosmology, geology, most of medicine, philosophy, science of mind, etc. You don't consider those all "science"? There's more to science than Bacon.
  - freyr 11y ago
    Those fields have scientific and non-scientific components. The non-scientific parts are not science.
    - gumby 11y ago
      Your statement is tautological. You might want to read up on epistemology and the philosophy of science -- I would start with Karl Popper. As I said, Bacon is not the definition of science. Bizarrely, my unremarkable comment was downvoted!
      - Godel_unicode 11y ago
        I believe you were downvoted because you were factually inaccurate about the presence of scientific studies in medicine especially. Controlled, double-blind, repeatable (from a population standpoint) studies are something medicine is good at. Note that there are counter-examples of medical studies which were poorly conducted, but realize that they are the exception not the rule.
      - freyr 11y ago
        > Your statement is tautological You want to label fields that have both scientific components and non-scientific components (in varying proportions) as "science." The point of my statement is that some of those fields have scientific aspects, and there may be sub-fields I'd categorize as "science," but I wouldn't categorize the field as a whole as "science."