I absolutely agree with that and it is something I've heard scientist friends talk about as well. It used to be that replication of results was a standard project assigned to early graduate students. Figuring out how another team performed an experiment by analyzing their publication helped students not only do individual work but it also helped them understand what makes for a well written paper (or a crappily written paper).
There has been less and less of this for a variety of reasons. One reason is the increase in specialized, expensive, equipment. There are fewer places that could, possibly, replicate the entire experiment. Lacking that, you need to try and get the raw data used in the published experiment which ends up with its own set of problems. More commonly, the big problem is that there just isn't financial support for it. Universities used to support most of the operations of a lab, with grants paying for specialized equipment, direct costs of the research and maybe some of the grad students. These days, there is hardly any financial support for most labs from the university. They have the building space and pay the salary of the lead researcher and that is mostly it. Everything else, including grad students, has to be paid for by grants brought in by the lead researcher. This has a major influence on what projects get performed (they have to match up with a grant somewhere) and what activities are performed (no money in the budget for students working on projects that aren't grant related). Cheers, Judah On Mon, May 19, 2014 at 5:56 AM, C. Hatton Humphrey <[email protected]>wrote: > > Why Reporting On Scientific Research May Warp Findings > > The pressure to publish original research can mean scientists are > neglecting to verify the work of others. In its current issue, the Journal > of Social Science is trying a different approach. > > > http://news.wbfo.org/post/why-reporting-scientific-research-may-warp-findings > > The theory that the article discusses is that research scientists and > peer-reviewed journals are more likely to publish findings on "something > new" rather than recreations of something previously published. This is > because of how the peer-review process works and the tendency to publish > sexy over scientific review. > > Thoughts? > > > Until Later! > C. Hatton Humphrey > http://www.eastcoastconservative.com > > Every cloud does have a silver lining. Sometimes you just have to do some > smelting to find it. > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:370166 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
