3 ms·

Curious, if replicability of science research is so messed up, how come real technological progress seems to be happening at all? (e.g. devices, drugs)

claytonjy 9y ago
Varies widely by field. Fields whose studies have inherently small sample sizes and low power, like psychology, are more susceptible to poor conclusions. That's before we even talk about the culture surrounding different fields. Take a random study from physics and another from social psychology; the physics study will generally be a much higher-powered study, botching the stats will have a smaller effect on the conclusion, and the practitioners themselves are, arguably, better statisticians anyways.
- icelancer 9y ago
  Physics/Math/CS also has the arxiv which is a notorious battleground to test your ideas in the open (a very good thing).
  - hrasyid 9y ago
    how does it work?
  - Q6T46nT668w6i3m 9y ago
    Biology too: http://www.biorxiv.org http://www.biorxiv.org
oculusthrift 9y ago
replicability issues are mostly in psych and economics. devices and drugs rely on physics and chem/biology which are highly replicable. it's obvious how physics is replicable as anyone can drop an object and measure how long it takes to fall.. etc
- hrasyid 9y ago
  Is drug biology really easily replicable? I mean, people can't just find hundreds of sick people who are willing to be random-tested by some random drug, right?
  - nonbel 9y ago
    No, not at all. It may be worse off than psychology: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270077/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270077/ http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/future_tense/2016/04/biomedicine_facing_a_worse_replication_crisis_than_the_one_plaguing_psychology.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/future_tens... http://www.nature.com/nrd/journal/v10/n9/full/nrd3439-c1.html http://www.nature.com/nrd/journal/v10/n9/full/nrd3439-c1.htm... http://www.reuters.com/article/us-science-cancer-idUSBRE82R12P20120328 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-science-cancer-idUSBRE82R1... http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v483/n7391/full/483531a.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v483/n7391/full/483531a... http://www.sciencemag.org/content/348/6242/1411 http://www.sciencemag.org/content/348/6242/1411 http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002165 http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jour... http://www.nature.com/news/cancer-reproducibility-project-scales-back-ambitions-1.18938 http://www.nature.com/news/cancer-reproducibility-project-sc...
muzani 9y ago
You don't actually need hard science to make progress. Soft science gives hints on what the truth is. Sometimes it's best to move forward with what we have, rather than wait for more data.

claytonjy 9y ago

Varies widely by field. Fields whose studies have inherently small sample sizes and low power, like psychology, are more susceptible to poor conclusions. That's before we even talk about the culture surrounding different fields. Take a random study from physics and another from social psychology; the physics study will generally be a much higher-powered study, botching the stats will have a smaller effect on the conclusion, and the practitioners themselves are, arguably, better statisticians anyways.

icelancer 9y ago
Physics/Math/CS also has the arxiv which is a notorious battleground to test your ideas in the open (a very good thing).
- hrasyid 9y ago
  how does it work?
- Q6T46nT668w6i3m 9y ago
  Biology too: http://www.biorxiv.org http://www.biorxiv.org

oculusthrift 9y ago

replicability issues are mostly in psych and economics. devices and drugs rely on physics and chem/biology which are highly replicable. it's obvious how physics is replicable as anyone can drop an object and measure how long it takes to fall.. etc

hrasyid 9y ago
Is drug biology really easily replicable? I mean, people can't just find hundreds of sick people who are willing to be random-tested by some random drug, right?
- nonbel 9y ago
  No, not at all. It may be worse off than psychology: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270077/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270077/ http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/future_tense/2016/04/biomedicine_facing_a_worse_replication_crisis_than_the_one_plaguing_psychology.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/future_tens... http://www.nature.com/nrd/journal/v10/n9/full/nrd3439-c1.html http://www.nature.com/nrd/journal/v10/n9/full/nrd3439-c1.htm... http://www.reuters.com/article/us-science-cancer-idUSBRE82R12P20120328 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-science-cancer-idUSBRE82R1... http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v483/n7391/full/483531a.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v483/n7391/full/483531a... http://www.sciencemag.org/content/348/6242/1411 http://www.sciencemag.org/content/348/6242/1411 http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002165 http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jour... http://www.nature.com/news/cancer-reproducibility-project-scales-back-ambitions-1.18938 http://www.nature.com/news/cancer-reproducibility-project-sc...

muzani 9y ago

You don't actually need hard science to make progress. Soft science gives hints on what the truth is. Sometimes it's best to move forward with what we have, rather than wait for more data.