3 ms·

Are there examples of these "data thugs" causing quality scientific work to be unduly criticized? For example, good faith research that cannot be replicated is

Are there examples of these "data thugs" causing quality scientific work to be unduly criticized? For example, good faith research that cannot be replicated is part of science. Are there researchers who have done such good faith research (no p-hacking, no egregious statistical errors) who now have to endure harassment and low-quality criticism because of the work of the "data thugs?"

mmirate 8y ago
"Bad faith" research is almost certainly non-replicable, but non-replicable research isn't necessarily in "bad faith". But that doesn't matter, because non-replicable research is still non-replicable research. If you study a nonextant phenomenon enough times, then you can produce a null-hypothesis rejection anyway; and if you study a nonextent phenomenon once, then that one study has a chance (albeit minute) of rejecting the null hypothesis anyway. The first is bad faith, the second is either bad luck or incompetence, but neither is an accurate representation of whatever was being studied. > good faith research that cannot be replicated is part of science. To science's detriment, yes.
- nonbel 8y ago
  >"But that doesn't matter, because non-replicable research is still non-replicable research" Exactly, the people who say direct replications are unnecessary are the ones fostering an environment for fraud. To the scientist it doesn't matter much why you couldn't describe what you did well enough for other people to repeat it. Maybe you made it up, maybe it depended upon the (unmeasured) magnetic field in your room, whatever.