How Trustworthy Is Published Science?

December 30, 2014

(Pacific Standard) – Reproducibility is a bedrock principle of science. The results in a scientific paper are not supposed to be the reflection of an individual scientist’s unique, personal views; they are supposed to be a general claim about how the world works—one that can be verified by others. But lately, social and biomedical scientists are worried that much of the research published in their fields fails to adhere to this bedrock principle of science. There are signs that a lot of published research may not be reproducible at all.