Psychologists Strike a Blow For Reproducibility

ananyo writes "Science has a much publicized reproducibility problem. Many experiments seem to be failing a key test of science — that they can be independently verified by another lab. But now 36 research groups have struck a blow for reproducibility, by successfully reproducing the results of 10 out of 13 past experiments in psychology. Even so, the Many Labs Replication Project found that the outcome of one experiment was only weakly supported and they could not replicate two of the experiments at all."

Re:Not bad at all

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that people are trying to reproduce the experiments is good news in and of itself.

Re:Not bad at all

[bondsbw]

If the scientific community valued reproducibility as much as original work, we would solve 2 problems:

1) Science without confirmation can lead us astray for years.
2) There are plenty of scientists who a great at experimentation but lousy at coming up with new ideas, and these scientists (or potential scientists) may not be finding their full potential.

And while we're at it, let's value failed experiments as much as successful experiments.

A quick question

[Okian Warrior]

The original model held that psychotherapy could cure depression. Talk to your analyst once a week and after years of treatment you got better.

Then it was discovered that low norepinephrine caused depression, and tricyclics fixed that and cured depression.

Then it was discovered that low serotonin caused depression, and SSRIs fixed that and cured depression.

Then it was discovered that low dopamine caused depression, and MAOIs fixed that and cured depression.

And recently, the The New England Journal of Medicine reported depression meds have no effect [huffingtonpost.com].

One last question... just one*.

Is psychology evidence-driven, or belief-driven?

(*) This isn't just me asking. Here's a quote from the The New England Journal of Medicine [nejm.org] article:

Evidence-based medicine is valuable to the extent that the evidence base is complete and unbiased. Selective publication of clinical trials — and the outcomes within those trials — can lead to unrealistic estimates of drug effectiveness and alter the apparent risk–benefit ratio.

(**) Also, I have no meaningful training in science or statistics. If you want, you can win the argument by pointing this out in your response.