On the need for replications
May 24th, 2007 by joseHere are a few posts that other readers recommend you check out:
Disclaimer: this post may be relevant only for social sciences/psychology people. I found a nice thread on the Judgment and decision making (JDM) mailing list on the need for replications.
Lots of good posts on an interesting discussion. The mainstream view is that we simply don’t run enough replications because they are harder to get published. This leads to studies showing that replications are actually very hard, with only a small percentage (about 40% in the social sciences) being successful. Robyn Dawes seems to thing that replications are overrated:
the “real” scientists do is to futch around until they get it “right.” The multiple study requirement just adds “first and second and third” studies, thereby wasting space and time.
There are comments on Increasing the Percentage of Papers Replicated, and some nice book recommendations on experimenter bias.
About the author: Jose Quesada wanted to be a matador, an acrobatic pilot, or a painter, but found those activities not demanding enough, so he chose an academic career. He secretly hopes to orchestrate a system that produces papers without any human intervention (particularly, his). If you enjoyed this post, make sure you sign up for our mailing list or subscribe to our RSS feed!