3 ms·

Yes of course I know what the Wikipedia definition is. Have you ever tried to 'replicate' a paper? Let's say someone did a survey of something. How are you goin

by roel_v 8y ago

Yes of course I know what the Wikipedia definition is. Have you ever tried to 'replicate' a paper? Let's say someone did a survey of something. How are you going to 'replicate' that? Or used a particular piece of equipment, or did some measurements in a field? Sure, it's easy to restrict yourself to the data files that go into some software, and say 'oh I used the same data set and software version, my research is 'replicatable'.' My point is that there are a lot of aspects to most research that aren't easy (or even at all) to replicate, even if one is put in all the effort required to document every minute circumstance. There is more to 'science' than CS algos and lab bench biomed. "Could you give an example of a non-numerical science?" This is the point you're probably going to argue about what is or is not 'science', so let me use 'scholarship' instead from the fields I work in: law, environmental science and geography. There is a lot of research that is not purely numerical in nature. Note that this doesn't mean that it doesn't use numbers; you misread what I wrote - I didn't say 'numerical disciplines', I said 'abstract numerical disciplines', by which I meant disciplines that require at least some judgement of qualitative properties or inexact measurements of things along the way, somewhere.

ajuc 8y ago
> Have you ever tried to 'replicate' a paper? No, but I had spent a whole year at university trying to replicate experiments in physics lab. I was studying CS but they had too many physics teachers so we had many of the same courses :) The equipment was abused by decades of students, you had 45 minutes to do the experiment, and the results usually weren't even the correct order of magnitude :) It was stuff like measuring speed of sound, atmospheric pressure, gravity constant, etc. Still - at least I knew it's the problem with equipment or with me, not with some obscure details that weren't mentioned and that I can't replicate. > My point is that there are a lot of aspects to most research that aren't easy (or even at all) to replicate And my point is that it makes publishing everything that can be adjusted that much more important. Another question - when there's economic and proffesional incentive to fudge the numbers, and no way to check if the numbers were fudged - how do you trust the results? I wouldn't.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
drb91 8y ago
Well, if someone else can’t reproduce the research, what’s the value of it? Any knowledge worth finding can be found many times.

by roel_v 8y ago

ajuc 8y ago

> Have you ever tried to 'replicate' a paper? No, but I had spent a whole year at university trying to replicate experiments in physics lab. I was studying CS but they had too many physics teachers so we had many of the same courses :) The equipment was abused by decades of students, you had 45 minutes to do the experiment, and the results usually weren't even the correct order of magnitude :) It was stuff like measuring speed of sound, atmospheric pressure, gravity constant, etc. Still - at least I knew it's the problem with equipment or with me, not with some obscure details that weren't mentioned and that I can't replicate. > My point is that there are a lot of aspects to most research that aren't easy (or even at all) to replicate And my point is that it makes publishing everything that can be adjusted that much more important. Another question - when there's economic and proffesional incentive to fudge the numbers, and no way to check if the numbers were fudged - how do you trust the results? I wouldn't.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

drb91 8y ago

Well, if someone else can’t reproduce the research, what’s the value of it? Any knowledge worth finding can be found many times.