Survey of scientists sheds light on reproducibility crisis (2016)
As a working scientist, I feel both sides of the problem every day. Most papers I come across turn out to be difficult if not impossible to reproduce, and I'm sure some of my own papers have fallen into that group at some points (although given that I'm a theorist, what "reproducible" means can be a bit fuzzy sometimes). At the same time, I'm confused every time I see people wondering about the scale of the problem or what to do about it. There is absolutely no mystery here whatsoever.Scientists are generally fairly smart people. Put smart people in a hypercompetitive environment and they will quickly identify the traits that are being rewarded and optimize for those. What does academia reward? Large numbers of publications with lots of citations, nothing else matters. So, naturally, scientists flock to hip buzzword-filled topics and churn out papers as quickly as they can. Not only is there absolutely no reward for easy reproducibility, it can actually harm you if someone manages to copy you quickly enough and then beat you to the next incremental publishable discovery in the neverending race. This is absurd and counterproductive to science in general, but such is the state of the academic job market.Anyone who purports to somehow address the situation without substantially changing the fundamental predicates for hiring and funding in the sciences is just wasting their breath. As long as the incentives are what they are, reproducibility will be a token most scientists pay tribute to in name only.