Do we know what we are doing?

Abstract

In November 2012, the newly created Open Science Collaboration published a brief article announcing a multi-year effort to "estimate the reproducibility of psychological science." The collaboration was directed by Brian Nosek of the University of Virginia and would eventually involve over 250 co-authors. According to the collaboration, reproducibility was one of, if not the single most defining feature of the social endeavor known as "science." "Other types of belief," the authors write, "depend on the authority and motivations of the source; beliefs in science do not." The ability to reproduce scientific results across time and space -- the ability to have results be independent of the individuals involved -- is what the authors argued makes science science. And yet the eventual findings of the reproducibility project showed a remarkable reproductive failure. Over half of all studies failed to indicate similar effects upon replication. The very value upon which science was supposed to be founded appeared to be an exception rather than a norm.