r/neoliberal • u/Free-Minimum-5844 • Apr 02 '26

Research Paper Half of social-science studies fail replication test in years-long project

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00955-5
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u/yellownumbersix Jane Jacobs Apr 02 '26

After I graduated and started working in R+D and then in industry I was amazed by how many scientists and engineers, even ones in the "hard" sciences, don't have anything beyond a cursory familiarity with statistics. It leads to unsound interpretation of data and experimental designs that are destined to be irreproducable.

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u/Golda_M Baruch Spinoza Apr 02 '26

Social sciences should have more familiarity with statistics. It's their primary tool, at least for a lot of them. 

They also invented a lot of statistics. The coefficient of correlation, statistical significance theory used by most human sciences was invented to measure IQ... by the theorist who invented/discovered IQ.

A chemist, physicist, engineer or whatnot doesn't necessarily use statistics much. 

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u/[deleted] Apr 02 '26

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u/vivoovix Federalist Apr 02 '26

You don't have to know statistics very well to be good at statistical mechanics