From the LaunchPad

Welcome to The Launchpad, SoundRocket’s blog, where we share our insights and musings on the science of doing science (well), #soundscience.

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Republish from UNDARK: Where Scientific Mistakes Are Welcome

Republish from UNDARK: Where Scientific Mistakes Are Welcome

This is a first for the Launch Pad blog – a complete republish (with permission) of an article from another source.  The article included below hit on something that I feel strongly about – enough so that just a summary would not do it justice.  

Science is learning and growth in knowledge.  If we got it all “right” the first time, it would be a downright boring process (and not science!).  Science is about making mistakes, learning from them, and gradually (or sometimes not so gradually) improving on a shared general knowledge.

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Peer Review as a Necessary but Unscientific Process – Can we just do some iterative science already?

Peer review is wonderful in theory.  Scientists reviewing other scientists’ work to evaluate whether the science was applied thoroughly, implemented well, and interpreted effectively can be a wonderful way to allow the best science through.  But the Reproducibility Project clearly demonstrated that something is broken – when over a quarter of the published studies reviewed could not be replicated. 

It is not a surprise to most.  Humans are involved.  We make mistakes…

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