4 ms·

I have heard a suggestion that PHD eligibility should require a replication. This would not only help validate (or invalidate) studies but would also over time

I have heard a suggestion that PHD eligibility should require a replication. This would not only help validate (or invalidate) studies but would also over time reinforce the importance of replication culturally.

red_dazzler 10y ago
Yea, because it is really all the overworked and underpaid graduate students faults... I have never met a single graduate student who rushed to publish shoddy work on his/her own. However, I have watched time and again while young impressionable graduate students are slowly but surely guided to publish shoddy work by overworked and desperate professors who feel they have no choice but to keep getting "academic currency" (e.g. publications).
- afarrell 10y ago
  I think GP is saying that you should have to replicate another's work, not that your dissertation must be replicated. The latter would tack on I think we should make it more precise: in order to reach <stage>, you should have to replicate another's work that has not been replicated more than three times as of 6 months ago and produce either a record of a successful replication or a bug report detailing a failed replication. As a best practice, a lab where few of the incoming grad students can produce a definitive (either successful or failed) replication should checked-on by the university to see if they've just got a terrible working environment.
  - sevensor 10y ago
    This would be great training, too. Not only would grad students learn how to conduct experiments in their field, they would also learn the value of a good Methods section in a paper.
  - jclos 10y ago
    I don't know if making replication a "grad student chore" that you need to get through is a good way to remove the stigma behind "wasting" time replicating other's people scientific results instead of building your own. Perhaps we should just admit that replicating scientific results is just as much science as creating original work is, and grant degrees to students who manage to replicate a lot of work and publish it in a rigorous analysis.

red_dazzler 10y ago

Yea, because it is really all the overworked and underpaid graduate students faults... I have never met a single graduate student who rushed to publish shoddy work on his/her own. However, I have watched time and again while young impressionable graduate students are slowly but surely guided to publish shoddy work by overworked and desperate professors who feel they have no choice but to keep getting "academic currency" (e.g. publications).

afarrell 10y ago
I think GP is saying that you should have to replicate another's work, not that your dissertation must be replicated. The latter would tack on I think we should make it more precise: in order to reach <stage>, you should have to replicate another's work that has not been replicated more than three times as of 6 months ago and produce either a record of a successful replication or a bug report detailing a failed replication. As a best practice, a lab where few of the incoming grad students can produce a definitive (either successful or failed) replication should checked-on by the university to see if they've just got a terrible working environment.
- sevensor 10y ago
  This would be great training, too. Not only would grad students learn how to conduct experiments in their field, they would also learn the value of a good Methods section in a paper.
- jclos 10y ago
  I don't know if making replication a "grad student chore" that you need to get through is a good way to remove the stigma behind "wasting" time replicating other's people scientific results instead of building your own. Perhaps we should just admit that replicating scientific results is just as much science as creating original work is, and grant degrees to students who manage to replicate a lot of work and publish it in a rigorous analysis.