by Outahere 21 Replies latest social current
https://www.nature.com/news/1-500-scientists-lift-the-lid-on-reproducibility-1.19970
More than 70% of researchers have tried and failed to reproduce another scientist's experiments, and more than half have failed to reproduce their own experiments.
I didn't know it was so widespread...but it's a big problem in biology/medicine.
From the article: The data reveal sometimes-contradictory attitudes towards reproducibility. Although 52% of those surveyed agree that there is a significant 'crisis' of reproducibility, less than 31% think that failure to reproduce published results means that the result is probably wrong ...
There seems to be ambiguity - are the scientists trying to follow the methods of experiments or trying to reproduce results?
For my uni dissertation I carried out experiments on wolf behaviour. A scientist could carry out my experiment to the letter on the same wolf pack or another and get different results!
I suppose the reproducibility could be considered more or less of an issue depending on the field of science.
But when it's in supposedly highly controlled laboratory conditions, and when the results can often lead to the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars (not to mention lives), that it truly becomes problematic.
The great majority of landmark cancer papers were found to be unreproducible by Amgen.
http://www.nature.com/news/biotech-giant-publishes-failures-to-confirm-high-profile-science-1.19269
But when it's in supposedly highly controlled laboratory conditions, and when the results can often lead to the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars (not to mention lives), that it truly becomes problematic - what I'm gonna say probably won't make me popular, but I'm afraid that's too bad.
Scientists must lay out their methods in the 'Methods & Materials' section clearly and must diligently follow other methods from other experiments. That's it.
Getting different results is ok as long as you've followed the methods exactly.
Yeah, I guess it's OK that 85% of NIH papers are not reproducible. It's just your tax dollars at work.
Yeah, I guess it's OK that 85% of NIH papers are not reproducible. It's just your tax dollars at work - this is obviously not good news but I don't think science and scientists are to blame, as long as methods are clearly written and followed through accurately and consistently.
Most scientists do the best they can.
I spose there's just more than one way to skin a cat or get results 😉
Ask VW about that, I believe they developed the "clean diesel" car and have the tests to prove it! Lol that's a joke.
Hey someone mention my name? Yes it is a scandal. Big business, big money. Corporate fraud. There are a lot of crooks in corporate management, of a lot of companys getting paid big bucks making fraudulent claims and using short cuts for improvement in sales and more money.
Heads should roll and compensation paid in full. No ifs or buts.
LUHE.....Most scientists do the best they can......That is an interesting statement! I was torn apart on my last topic posted for daring to criticise the God of science.
"scientific research" is all about money. Especially in the field of medicine. I have seen too many victims to think otherwise.
Lots of research is today confirmed to be a scam. In my opinion, part of the reason is there are more researchers today, and less to discover (obviously). So they compete and compete and obviously they will slip up or make things up to get ahead.
Then there is social science, which should just be shut down, period!
