Nautilus

We Should Not Accept Scientific Results That Have Not Been Repeated

A few years ago, I became aware of serious problem in science: the irreproducibility crisis. A group of researchers at Amgen, an American pharmaceutical company, attempted to replicate 53 landmark cancer discoveries in close collaboration with the authors. Many of these papers were published in high-impact journals and came from prestigious academic institutions. To the surprise of everyone involved, they were able to replicate only six of those papers—approximately 11 percent.  

As expected, this observation had wide reverberations throughout the scientific community. The inability to independently replicate scientific findings threatens to undermine trust in the institution of science.

Yet, as an experimental biologist, my initial reaction to this crisis was dismissive. I reaffirmed to myself that science is self-correcting, and that wrong ideas have a place within scientific discourse. After

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from Nautilus

Nautilus2 min read
Color-Coding Crops for Climate Change
Green is the color of growth in the plant world. From an aerial view, most farms blanket the land in quilts of varying shades of green. But what if the stems and leaves of your average corn, barley, and rice plants were hairy and blue instead? One te
Nautilus7 min read
Insects and Other Animals May Have Consciousness
In 2022, researchers at the Bee Sensory and Behavioral Ecology Lab at Queen Mary University of London observed bumblebees doing something remarkable: The diminutive, fuzzy creatures were engaging in activity that could only be described as play. Give
Nautilus7 min read
A Radical Rescue for Caribbean Reefs
It’s an all-too-familiar headline: Coral reefs are in crisis. Indeed, in the past 50 years, roughly half of Earth’s coral reefs have died. Coral ecosystems are among the most biodiverse and valuable places on Earth, supporting upward of 860,000 speci

Related Books & Audiobooks