Well, just to push back a little on any impression some might get from this episode of the health of science (all IMO of course)
Most things aren’t subjected to replication attempts like this, largely because I think people have a decent amount of self-interest in getting on top of this material as early as possible if the claims are real, and, the manufacturing of the material is relatively trivial. In science in general, game changing technologies or techniques can get replication attention like this, but overall a lot of “discoveries or findings” just aren’t challenged as there is no real incentive to do so as a researcher, to the point that often you’ll get pushback if you try to publish a failed replication study.
And, lots of replications of an experiment mean teams are more likely to run into different problems at different times and solve them in parallel. It shakes the bugs out faster.
As always, this is why peer-review is taken in such high regard. Replicate, replicate, replicate.
Well, just to push back a little on any impression some might get from this episode of the health of science (all IMO of course)
Most things aren’t subjected to replication attempts like this, largely because I think people have a decent amount of self-interest in getting on top of this material as early as possible if the claims are real, and, the manufacturing of the material is relatively trivial. In science in general, game changing technologies or techniques can get replication attention like this, but overall a lot of “discoveries or findings” just aren’t challenged as there is no real incentive to do so as a researcher, to the point that often you’ll get pushback if you try to publish a failed replication study.
And, lots of replications of an experiment mean teams are more likely to run into different problems at different times and solve them in parallel. It shakes the bugs out faster.