Time Magazine Article "How the Research Community Is Addressing the Reproducability Crisis"

[Never Give Up]

Very interesting article.

http://time.com/3978589/research-re...emailed+(TIME:+Most+Emailed+Story+of+the+Day)

I guess it's not just the under funded diseases.

I'm looking forward to the long term benefits of remediating this problem.

 

[Simon]

The conclusion is worth reading:

Perhaps more important, however, is that researchers – and the public that funds many of them – realize that science is a process, and that all knowledge is provisional. “It’s not just naive to expect that all research will be perfectly free from errors,” writes Goldacre, “it’s actively harmful.” Journalists, take note.

Translated into policy, that means valuing replication efforts, which right now are essentially unfunded and hardly ever published. If we want scientists to validate others’ work, we’ll need to create grants to do that. That means digging up additional funding, but replicating a study costs a tiny fraction of what the original work does. Funding new studies based on those that turn out to be irreproducible…well, now that’s expensive.

read the full article: How the Research Community Is Addressing the ‘Reproducibility Crisis’ | TIME

 

[user9876]

Replication worries me a bit. I think two different things should be talked about
1) Simple replication - can someone reproduce an experiment. This does not mean the results are correct though as the methodology may be incorrect and they may just be reproducing the same error. Although my real objection here is that there is too much over-generalisation from an experiment and some may see a simple replication of supporting this over-generalisation. Take something like PACE I think it could be reproduced. What is should say is CBT/GET change the way patients answer specific questions.
2) Testing a hypothesis - This is a harder one but if we have a properly stated hypothesis then can alternative experiments be designed which will test the hypothesis. That is if we look at the theory can it be checked in different ways.

 

[SilverbladeTE]

Real Science is hard work, and takes a *GREAT DEAL OF TIME*
Nearly every damn thing we "know" now, or "knew" before, is *wrong*.
usually it's because over decades or more, things are shown to be more complex than originally thought
it's much rarer for the entire issue to be shown to be wrong.
Look at Physics for good examples.
With Physics there is far less of the greed, political and other bullshit that routinely perverts the medical research area.
Thus a good area to show how "today's heresy is tomorrow's orthodoxy"

 

[anciendaze]

I want to warn people that emphasis on reproducibility can easily be exploited to make sure that those who have been getting funding for advocating a particular viewpoint will continue to benefit. You might check the history of questions about the health effects of cigarette smoking, and the role R.A. Fisher played, as a paid consultant of tobacco companies, in delaying recognition.