Talk: Alexander Bird (Cambridge)

Title:

Lessons for the methodology of science from the replication crisis

Abstract:

Science, clinical medicine and social psychology in particular, suffers from a crisis of replication (replicability, reproducibility). Seemingly well-established results cannot be reproduced by later researchers. I look at two kinds of explanation: the use of ‘questionable research practices’ by scientists and a statistical explanation that points to the effects of using ’null hypothesis significance testing’ (NHST) in fields where hypotheses have low priors. I conclude that even if the latter provides much of the explanation, NHST may itself, in some circumstances, be regarded as a questionable research practice perpetrated by the scientific community as a whole.