Scientists replicated 100 recent psychology experiments. More than half of them failed. (vox.com) [posted in r/science]

blametheboogie · 2015-08-28T02:06:11+00:00

I have a bs in psychology and I always thought that it was more art than science. There are too many variables in human nature and nurture to easily control or replicate experiments.

This news is not even a little bit shocking to me.

From what I can tell it's hard to do more than come up with broad guidelines and generalizations at this point in our understanding of psychology. Not necessarily impossible but lots of stuff is considered unethical using our current guidelines so we (western civilization) can't do experiments they way we would need to to learn a lot of things. People have problems with doing lots of experiments on animals much less humans.

[deleted] · 2015-08-28T05:55:49+00:00

I would love them try to test evo psych and specifically the kind evo psych TRP uses .

ReddishBlack · 2015-08-28T00:35:36+00:00

Does this include evolutionary psychology?

If 50% failed, 50% saw some success. Which relevant studies failed/succeeded?

taiboworks · 2015-08-28T14:25:04+00:00

50% is pretty good, only 11% of landmark cancer studies could be replicated. http://www.scilogs.com/next_regeneration/the-replicability-crisis-in-cancer-research/

also, while they were only able to reproduce the effect sizes in 50% of the cases, most of the studies still had results in the direction predicted. two explanations of why only 50% of effect sizes were reproduced are fabrication/manicuring of data and publications having a bias for striking results, i.e. publications are selecting outliers more often (and obviously outlier data is not reproducible). in any case, this is why meta studies are considered the benchmark for validity and not individual studies.

drok007 · 2015-08-28T00:13:44+00:00

I've said this for a long time. The third link has an image showing the ranking of "positive results" which is most likely some indication. Bloops are just a lot more smug about their confirmation bias, and cult-like thinking they try and deny.

There is also this too.

TheChemist158 · 2015-08-28T00:35:23+00:00

I've never been impressed with psychology as a field. I'm not surprised by these results.

It's hard to say how reproducible my field is. Or it's hard to objectively tell. Usually you can replicate results, but it can takes months getting things right. It can be finicky.

dr_warlock · 2015-08-28T02:23:16+00:00

Let me remind you that western civilization is founded on the psychological theories of Sigmund Freud. Edward Bernais put them to the test in the 1920's to see if he could manipulate political opinions and consumption patterns, and it worked. He literally invented want. Bernais got women to smoke by simply linking the act with 'girl power' and female freedom of expression. Corporations went crazy over it. An example of a tactic based on Freud's theories was celebrity endorsement.

From the Red Pill Video Compilation Nuke: Required Viewing for All...

Century of the Self (4 Part Series)

Like Darwin and his theory of evolution, Sigmund Freud's ideas about the subconscious controlling most of our lives was considered, 'radical', specifically those pertaining to sexuality. It was insulting to people's sensibilities and egos that they weren't in complete conscious control of their lives. And also like Darwin's critics, people didn't like being reminded that they were animals underneath it all.

A government official alive during the 1920's admits the government took a keen interest in Freud's ideas of the subconscious, and wanted to research on how to manipulate their citizen's minds without their conscious knowledge.

ilikegiraffes123 · 2015-08-28T05:30:38+00:00

Social sciences should be relabeled as pseudo philosophy. At least the philosophers openly admit that they are no use to anyone.

GODZILLAFLAMETHROWER · 2015-08-28T09:34:16+00:00

Good, at least here we can see the bullshit. That's sane process.

"Any temptation to interpret these results as a defeat for psychology, or science more generally, must contend with the fact that this project demonstrates science behaving as it should."

Now, that also says that anything that can not be falsifiable and thus testable is to be taken with a gigantic grain of salt. Like evolutionary psychology.

betterdeadthanbeta · 2015-08-28T12:51:28+00:00

Anyways what do you guys think?

My opinion of psychological science just went up. I tend to dislike soft sciences in general, due to lack of experimental rigor, inability to isolate variables, drawing extremely broad conclusions from limited data, and a moderate leftist bias consistent with the rest of academia. However, that this review even took place is more than you can say for, for example, sociology, which is just a complete fucking mess.

Psychology is a better field all around. More scientific, more interesting, more pragmatic/applicable, and as we can see, more prone to rigorous testing and review.

It is too easy to conclude that successful replication means that the theoretical understanding of the original finding is correct. Direct replication mainly provides evidence for the reliability of a result. If there are alternative explanations for the original finding, those alternatives could likewise account for the replication. Understanding is achieved through multiple, diverse investigations that provide converging support for a theoretical interpretation and rule out alternative explanations.

I liked this passage from the study. Too often online, an intellectual will come in with a single study that they think proves them 'right' with regard to some argument or other. If you want to take that road, you need repeatable evidence from diverse studies with large sample groups. Preferably, sample groups that don't consist of one of the investigator's students...

chazzALB · 2015-08-28T18:14:13+00:00

It's vox.com. basically they found a bunch of writers who weren't good enough for vice.com and gave them their own website.

[deleted] · 2015-08-28T00:20:34+00:00

LOL,

"And I am sure that many of you would be shocked to find out how low the reproducibility rates are in other fields"

If there is a problem in the hard sciences it is with people publishing too quickly before they verify their results.

If an experiment can't be reproduced then it is not science, it is just a non result/inconclusive so no reason to publish it in my opinion.

Cyralea · 2015-08-28T00:45:06+00:00

Ah the joy of using students as subjects...it's the stupidest thing to do, yet they continue to do it. What's worse is when they make a bonus or a part of a course...kids just go in and press A, A, A, A.

Maoist-Pussy · 2015-08-28T06:32:51+00:00

In my view, psychological scientists are among the most dedicated and rigorous scientists there are.

Which branch of science has all the ambivalent, non-rigorous ones? Inquiring minds want to know.

DreamCatcher24 · 2015-08-28T09:42:17+00:00

I remember reading somewhere that even in other sciences, there is an issue of replicating results especially in papers published in high impact journals like Nature. One of the reasons being that these journals look at new worthiness over rigorous methodology. Here is a blog post that talks about it.

wonderingwhether54 · 2015-08-28T20:12:28+00:00

** This just in! Scientist tried to replicate 100 Terper experiments, 100% failed**

Scientists complained that there were no quality controls, experimental protocol, nor hypotheses in any of the so-called "experiments" , making then very difficult to test. Scientists pleaded with the president to address American's lack of scientific literacy"

crankypants15 · 2015-08-31T11:47:25+00:00

Yes, many of the studies had samples too small to be meaningful, that's why I try to find the sample size in the study before I read on. However, psychology has helped me immensely with my relationships, work, and personal life. Psychology provided models I can understand, which provided me goals to work towards.

Psychology is not an exact science. Even in therapy you are relying on a patient to self-report symptoms and there is always a problem with consistency of reporting and definition of symptoms. Psychology tries to provide some general models based on general trends. Nothing more, nothing less.

wazzup987 · 2015-08-28T01:57:36+00:00

who would thought that field over ridden with feminist and and sjws would be 50% bullshit by volume. with any luck perhaps evo psyche will be caught up in this and found to be just as bullshit.

I cant wait for them to do sociology and women/gender studies and anthro. oh god please let the do gender studies. i would have a stem rage boner.

Title	Scientists replicated 100 recent psychology experiments. More than half of them failed. (vox.com) [posted in r/science]
Author	Reginleifer
Upvotes	12
Comments	65
Date	August 28, 2015 12:01 AM UTC (10 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/3inx3n/scientists_replicated_100_recent_psychology/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/scientists-replicated-100-recent-psychology.279982 https://theredarchive.com/post/279982

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