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If there's an obvious flaw in the existing study, you can make something out of a new study which doesn't contain that flaw. But it's very hard to convince your
by lars512 14y ago
If there's an obvious flaw in the existing study, you can make something out of a new study which doesn't contain that flaw. But it's very hard to convince yourself (and others) that replicating/failing to replicate someone's work is the same level of contribution as the original work.
What would be great: a centralised place for people to share their attempts to replicate a work. If several groups have failed, and nobody has succeeded, then there's certainly room for a rigorous, joint debunking of the experiment. If, as is often the case, there's some subtlety to get the experiment right, then the discussion around it between groups actually enhances the original work.
- lutusp 14y ago> If there's an obvious flaw in the existing study, you can make something out of a new study which doesn't contain that flaw. Not necessarily. How would you repair a study that requires strict controls but human subjects, without violating ethical constraints? You can't. Some studies are perpetually hobbled by the fact that you can't put human subjects in rat cages and force-feed them. My point is that, beyond the replicability issues discussed on the linked article, there are serious and ongoing obstacles to rigorous experimental work in psychology.