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The Division of Replication Labor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Felipe Romero
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Abstract

Scientists are becoming increasingly aware of a “replicability crisis” in the behavioral, social, and biomedical sciences. Researchers have made progress identifying statistical and methodological causes of the crisis. However, the social structure of science is also to blame. In the fields affected by the crisis, nobody is explicitly responsible and rewarded for doing confirmation and replication work. This article makes the case for a social structural reform to address the problem. I argue that we need to establish a reward system that supports a dedicated group of confirmation researchers and formulate a proposal that would achieve this.

Type
Values, Policy, and Social Epistemology
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 87 , Issue 5: PSA 2018 - Proceedings of the 2018 biennial meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II Symposia Papers , December 2020 , pp. 1014 - 1025
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

I am grateful to Ryan Doody, Jan Sprenger, Teresa Ai, Carl Craver, and the editor for their useful comments on previous drafts. I also thank the audience at the Philosophy of Science Association Biennial Meeting, Seattle, November 2018, for helpful discussion.

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