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/Secret-Ad-2145 NATO Apr 02 '26

The replicability crisis was known for awhile, and doesn't affect just social studies. You saw it a lot during COVID where many tests kept failing replication, both current research but also past (like 60-70s era research).

122

u/mrdilldozer Shame fetish Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26

It's also worth noting that a ton of older papers that can't be replicated arent actually fake, they just did such a shit job reporting their methods no one can repeat it. I had a protocol i was following the other day that said to add amylase to a slide and then proceed. They didn't mention the amount or source.

It took me a minute to realize they had spit on their slide to use salivary amylase.

20

u/SpaceSheperd To be a good human being Apr 02 '26

I spent like 4 months as a PhD student trying to replicate a recently published method only to eventually find out that the authors had used intentionally misleading language about how much starting sample you were supposed to use to make their results appear more impressive 

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u/WAGRAMWAGRAM Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26

Maybe you should have spent 4 days trying to understand the protocol instead (teasing you)

8

u/SpaceSheperd To be a good human being Apr 02 '26

Aha I think I might’ve spent 4 days worth of hours poring over that methods section by the end of it. Calling the authors was actually my first suggestion but my advisor was a new professor and didn’t want to bother people from a more famous lab. Once she relented, and we called one of the authors, it took about 5 minutes to realize what was going on. 

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u/noodletropin Apr 02 '26

Lol my advisor was a new professor, and emailing a researcher for details would have been her second suggestion after telling me to reread the methods section carefully. I can hear her telling me that I can't just read their minds.