Can you replicate scientific results?
Nature: Is it possible to always replicate scientific results asks Jim Giles in Nature. In 2002, at least two papers in the journals 4 July issue contained result that may not be replicable. There is nothing suspicious about the papers, nor any suggestion that their authors are anything other than excellent scientists. Nor was that week particularly odd, and there is no reason to think that other journals publish fewer problematic papers. It is simply the case that the replication of results, a process absolutely central to science, is not always possible.
"If you want to know whether a duck is crossing the street, you look twice," says Harry Collins, a social scientist at Cardiff University, UK, who cheerfully describes himself as the world expert on replication. Replication in science, he says, is the same: it is a way of being sure that something really exists, and the process by which tentative discoveries acquire textbook status. If, on the other hand, attempts to replicate a result meet failure again and again, that result will end up being discounted.
