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Results Are In From Psychology's Largest Reproducibility Test: 39/100 Reproduced

Posted by samzenpus on from the different-directions dept.

An anonymous reader writes: A crowd-sourced effort to replicate 100 psychology studies has successfully reproduced findings from 39 of them. Some psychologists say this shows the field has a replicability problem. Others say the results are "not bad at all". The results are nuanced: 24 non-replications had findings at least "moderately similar" to the original paper but which didn't quite reach statistical significance. From the article: "The results should convince everyone that psychology has a replicability problem, says Hal Pashler, a cognitive psychologist at the University of California, San Diego, and an author of one of the papers whose findings were successfully repeated. 'A lot of working scientists assume that if it’s published, it’s right,' he says. 'This makes it hard to dismiss that there are still a lot of false positives in the literature.'”

5 of 174 comments (clear)

  1. What They Don't Say by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    What they don't tell you is that of the 39 reproducible results:

    9 were telepathic,
    3 were remote viewing,
    15 were astral projection,
    11 were telekinetic,
    and 1 was precognitive (we knew the results of this study before it was published).

    1. Re:What They Don't Say by Penguinisto · · Score: 3, Funny

      Think of it this way... psychology is the 1960-70's equivalent of today's MBA, and have many similarities:

      * neither has an objective means of measuring success or failure, in spite of claiming to have a wide array of methods by which to do so.
      * neither the psychologist or the MBA is held accountable for incompetence or non-criminal malice.
      * sometimes either one can take on the semblance of religion, minus a deity.
      * the big 'do-nothing-but-are-promised-great-riches' degree of the 60's-80's was psychology, as hordes of students took that class thinking just that. In the 90's through today it's the MBA program.
      * both can stretch logic and credulity in their work to attempt things that would get an engineer either incarcerated or killed.

      (...add your own here...)

      (Trigger warning for the MBAs and Psych majors: this is what is known as a joke.)

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  2. Has Anyone Reproduced Their Results? by registrations_suck · · Score: 4, Funny

    Well, this is interesting news, to be sure. Gives us plenty to think about. I can't help but wonder if anyone has been able to reproduce their results.

  3. Re:39/100 is the new passing grade. by lurking_giant · · Score: 3, Funny

    Should have had the teachers in Atlanta grade the results... http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05...

  4. Re:39/100 is the new passing grade. by geminidomino · · Score: 3, Funny

    And those that are labeling a score of 39/100 "not bad at all" should have their head checked.

    They did, but only 39/100 of them found anything out of whack.