As hard to believe as it is for software engineers, science is not in the code, it is in the thought process that leads to the code and in the interpretation of

As hard to believe as it is for software engineers, science is not in the code, it is in the thought process that leads to the code and in the interpretation of the results. The code for an experiment can be lost forever, but if you did your job correctly you have described why, how, and where the experiment works. Future scientists can now "build on the shoulders" of this knowledge and use it to go further and validate the previous result or discredit if it is indeed incorrect. People complain that published papers are full of incorrect results, but they don't understand that this is just part of the process. Incorrect results will be forgotten because they will never be validated. Correct results will be validated and used (cited) by new scientists as they try discover even more complicated things.