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To follow up, the papers can sometimes be deliberately vague with respect to actual volumes/masses/materials, as theoretically the concentration, & activity and

by toufka 11y ago

To follow up, the papers can sometimes be deliberately vague with respect to actual volumes/masses/materials, as theoretically the concentration, & activity and other state-functions sufficiently describe the system. The exact DNA sequence I use might be important, but if I just say I used gene, 'hGENE1', that should be sufficient for the published science. Sure, my hGene1 might have a mutation, or yours might, but we'd never learn that if we just kept passing around the same plasmid, calling it hGene1 (I'm looking at you, cell-lines...). That you used brand-X tubes should generally not be important to the science (conceptually, though sometimes they are physically), and so should be left out of the paper's protocol precisely so that another lab does not use that tube during a replication study. It's not bad science that using brand-X tube yields different results than brand-Y tube, though it can be frustrating to learn that is the crux of the difference you've been seeing. It is precisely that kind of variable that must be ferreted out, and can often only be ferreted out when labs attack the same problem from a different angle.

mrestko 11y ago
In terms of listing certain brands, you're completely correct that this should not cause there to be different results. But I disagree that these details should be left out of the paper. Any competent scientist attempting to replicate a result can make assumptions about which equipment (like tubing) should not reasonably be expected to change the results. It should be up to the replicating scientist to make the equipment substitutions that he deems reasonable. An example might be listing that a certain brand of pippetor tips or centrifuge were used during the experiment. It is highly unlikely that a lab is going to go out of their way to acquire the exact brand of pipettor tips or centrifuge in order to replicate the experiment. But should they have difficulty reproducing the results, having the additional specific data in the original write up allows for the replicating lab to being troubleshooting on their own. They can begin looking at small level details which may have affected their results.

by toufka 11y ago

mrestko 11y ago

In terms of listing certain brands, you're completely correct that this should not cause there to be different results. But I disagree that these details should be left out of the paper. Any competent scientist attempting to replicate a result can make assumptions about which equipment (like tubing) should not reasonably be expected to change the results. It should be up to the replicating scientist to make the equipment substitutions that he deems reasonable. An example might be listing that a certain brand of pippetor tips or centrifuge were used during the experiment. It is highly unlikely that a lab is going to go out of their way to acquire the exact brand of pipettor tips or centrifuge in order to replicate the experiment. But should they have difficulty reproducing the results, having the additional specific data in the original write up allows for the replicating lab to being troubleshooting on their own. They can begin looking at small level details which may have affected their results.