4 ms·
If you don't publish replications and failures to replicate, you aren't publishing science. If a study is worth publishing once, it's worth publishing enough ti
by kerkeslager 7y ago
If you don't publish replications and failures to replicate, you aren't publishing science. If a study is worth publishing once, it's worth publishing enough times to establish its result as conclusive. Otherwise, you haven't discovered anything, and the whole scientific process has failed, since the purpose of the scientific process is to discover conclusions.
You're right that in business, there's a disincentive to publish replications, because business treats science publication as literary nonfiction: they're trying to publish the most sensational results, because the most sensational results sell journals. This is one of the strongest arguments that scientific publication shouldn't be a business: making scientific publication a business creates incentives for scientific publications to not publish science.
- bryanrasmussen 7y agothat's all very well and good, please show how the needs of science to publish all these studies will correspond with the needs of Science to make money to continue publishing studies. My assumption is that the need to make money will beat the need to publish replications. on edit: because it seems like your argument really is that Science the business should shut down.
- kerkeslager 7y agoI don't care about the needs of Science the business. Science the business should shut down, not of their own volition, but because the scientific community shifts away from for-profit publications and Science has the respectability of a tabloid.
- bryanrasmussen 7y agoGreat, that's an honest response - an honest argument to be made. A dishonest response is saying they should publish things that makes no business sense for them to publish, and the logistics of which really makes no sense for their business model, with the seeming purpose of upbraiding them when they fail to do this thing they would never do.
- kerkeslager 7y agoYou're basically saying that Science (the business) should do whatever makes the most money, always, and anyone who criticizes them for doing that is "dishonest". Science (the business) is being dishonest by pretending to publish science (the method for obtaining facts). It's not okay just because it makes them money, and it's not dishonest to upbraid them for their harmful behavior.