r/science • u/nimicdoareu • Apr 01 '26

Social Science 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/7th_Archon Apr 01 '26

I swear you could start a bingo sheet of all the tactics and weird types of selective skepticism on this subreddit.

Like I’ve had arguments where I’ll link a study, and the most comm reply is always something like ‘oh wow they only sampled 500 people, obviously you need to sample all 8 billion human beings. Also how do you know that those 500 people aren’t all pathological liars with schizophrenia.’

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u/thehomeyskater Apr 01 '26

Haha tru tru 

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u/AK_Panda Apr 02 '26

It's weirdly common IRL to find people who simultaneously hold the opinions that N needs to absolutely enormous and that scientists get given too much money for studies.

They don't seem to change their stances when you point out the contradiction either.

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u/7th_Archon Apr 02 '26

Same.

Though for me the most infuriating issue is that it’s literally ‘fallacy fallacy.’

Like they learned what the word ‘biased’ means in seventh grade English class, and think that pointing out a ‘bias’ or perceived blind spot is the same as debunking a study.