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I'm somehow both surprised at the comments here and also not surprised. A remarkably large number of people posting find no problem whatsoever in a supposedly t

I'm somehow both surprised at the comments here and also not surprised. A remarkably large number of people posting find no problem whatsoever in a supposedly top journal claiming "the field has moved on" from a major and famous study that turns out to be wrong. Heck, I'm not a psychologist and I've heard of this study! All sorts of important questions are raised by this: - Should we trust anything published by Science or other top journals at all? - Is the lackadaisical attitude related to the subject matter? I've read that studies casting conservatives in a good light get replicated almost immediately, and psychology is completely dominated by liberal voters (>90%). Which leads to: - Why did it take over ten years for such a widely cited study to be replicated? Nobody cared because it fed their own political biases? And finally: - What do we do about it? Can academia reform itself at all or is that a lost cause? If so perhaps psychology isn't really worth studying, given the large expense involved and the fact that the outputs so often seem to be noise.

Kim_Bruning 7y ago
As an (old/ex-ish) wikipedian, I often hear people say "Wikipedia is unreliable"; which is indubitably 100% technically correct. But the statement is highly misleading, because what are you comparing it with? Put another way: There's no such thing as a 100% reliable source for anything. You need to apply judgment in all things. 'Science' is actually a pretty decent journal. It didn't get its reputation for nothing. This doesn't mean that you can just assume they are a magical source of all truth; just like you can't assume 'Wikipedia' is (_definitely_ not), or 'Nature', or 'Britannica' or etc. - Should we trust anything published by Science at all? Only to a degree. One must always be skeptical and think for oneself, no matter what the source. - Why did it take ten years for the study to be replicated? Maybe it didn't. Perhaps these are just the first authors to speak up about it. - What can we do about it? Continue working to improve the process, as we have done over the past centuries or millennia. The authors of this particular paper spoke up. That's part of the process too.
- repolfx 7y ago
  Whilst I see your point, the problem here is not "people want Science to be a source of truth" but rather "people want Science (and other journals) to strive for the truth", which is subtly different. A part of striving for truth is being interested in cases where you were wrong as well as right. Science has given the impression here that they don't care if astonishing claims turn out to be false. This is the sort of behaviour associated with tabloids. Is Science an entertainment magazine or is it striving for truth? The standards of behaviour expected are different.

Kim_Bruning 7y ago

As an (old/ex-ish) wikipedian, I often hear people say "Wikipedia is unreliable"; which is indubitably 100% technically correct. But the statement is highly misleading, because what are you comparing it with? Put another way: There's no such thing as a 100% reliable source for anything. You need to apply judgment in all things. 'Science' is actually a pretty decent journal. It didn't get its reputation for nothing. This doesn't mean that you can just assume they are a magical source of all truth; just like you can't assume 'Wikipedia' is (_definitely_ not), or 'Nature', or 'Britannica' or etc. - Should we trust anything published by Science at all? Only to a degree. One must always be skeptical and think for oneself, no matter what the source. - Why did it take ten years for the study to be replicated? Maybe it didn't. Perhaps these are just the first authors to speak up about it. - What can we do about it? Continue working to improve the process, as we have done over the past centuries or millennia. The authors of this particular paper spoke up. That's part of the process too.

repolfx 7y ago
Whilst I see your point, the problem here is not "people want Science to be a source of truth" but rather "people want Science (and other journals) to strive for the truth", which is subtly different. A part of striving for truth is being interested in cases where you were wrong as well as right. Science has given the impression here that they don't care if astonishing claims turn out to be false. This is the sort of behaviour associated with tabloids. Is Science an entertainment magazine or is it striving for truth? The standards of behaviour expected are different.