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It's just as likely that the second researcher would make a subtle mistake in the process of replicating the results of a paper that didn't include code. And u
by xiaoma 16y ago
It's just as likely that the second researcher would make a subtle mistake in the process of replicating the results of a paper that didn't include code. And unlike in the scenario in which the first scientist publishes a mistake, it would be impossible for a third party to find or correct it.
- jonhendry 16y agoIf a scientist says their results have a certain p-value, they don't need to release the source code for how they obtained that p-value, for another scientist to be able to tell if the p-value is incorrect given the data. A lot of code is going to be like that: applying known functions that can be identified by name. If a paper says it used an FFT on some data, there are plenty of well-tested FFT implementations that can be used by another researcher to try to replicate the original result. The original researcher's FFT code, if any, isn't really necessary as long as the function, the inputs, and the outputs are well-documented.