Failure to Replicate: Sound the Alarm

Cerebrum. 2015 Nov 1:2015:cer-12a-15. eCollection 2015 Nov-Dec.

Abstract

Science has always relied on reproducibility to build confidence in experimental results. Now, the most comprehensive investigation ever done about the rate and predictors of reproducibility in social and cognitive sciences has found that regardless of the analytic method or criteria used, fewer than half of the original findings were successfully replicated. While a failure to reproduce does not necessarily mean the original report was incorrect, the results suggest that more rigorous methods are long overdue.