Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T04:22:44.592Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Incentivizing Replication Is Insufficient to Safeguard Default Trust

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Abstract

Philosophers of science and metascientists alike typically model scientists’ behavior as driven by credit maximization. In this article I argue that this modeling assumption cannot account for how scientists have a default level of trust in each other’s assertions. The normative implication of this is that science policy should not focus solely on incentive reform.

Type
Social Epistemology and Science Policy
Copyright
Copyright 2021 by the Philosophy of Science Association. All rights reserved.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

The author would like to acknowledge the audience of an online workshop on the replicability crisis organized by Olivier Leclerc and Stéphanie Ruphy, as well as Stijn Conix, Remco Heesen, and Liam Kofi Bright for their helpful comments.

References

ALLEA (All European Academies). 2017. “The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity.” https://allea.org/code-of-conduct/.Google Scholar
Anderson, Melissa S., Ronning, Emily A., Vries, Raymond De, and Martinson, Brian C.. 2007. “The Perverse Effects of Competition on Scientists’ Work and Relationships.” Science and Engineering Ethics 13 (4): 437–61.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baker, Monya. 2016. “Is There a Reproducibility Crisis?Nature News 533 (7604): 452–54.Google Scholar
Bicchieri, Cristina. 2016. Norms in the Wild: How to Diagnose, Measure, and Change Social Norms. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brembs, Björn. 2018. “Prestigious Science Journals Struggle to Reach Even Average Reliability.” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 12 (February): 37. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2018.00037.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carvalho, Teresa. 2017. “The Study of the Academic Profession: Contributions from and to the Sociology of Professions.” In Theory and Method in Higher Education Research, Vol. 3, ed. Huisman, Jeroen and Tight, Malcolm, 5976. Bingley: Emerald.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collier, Roger. 2015. “Scientific Misconduct or Criminal Offence?CMAJ: Canadian Medical Association Journal 187 (17): 1273–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Crocker, Jennifer, and Cooper, M. Lynne. 2011. “Addressing Scientific Fraud.” Science 334 (6060): 1182–82.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Desmond, Hugh. 2020. “Professionalism in Science: Competence, Autonomy, and Service.” Science and Engineering Ethics 26 (3): 1287–313.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fanelli, Daniele. 2018. “Opinion: Is Science Really Facing a Reproducibility Crisis, and Do We Need It To?Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115 (11): 2628–31.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Forsberg, Ellen-Marie, et al. 2018. “Working with Research Integrity—Guidance for Research Performing Organisations: The Bonn PRINTEGER Statement.” Science and Engineering Ethics 24 (4): 1023–34.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gilbert, Daniel T, King, Gary, Pettigrew, Stephen, and Wilson, Timothy D.. 2016. “Comment on ‘Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science.’Science 351 (6277): 1037–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gorgolewski, Krzysztof J., Nichols, Thomas, Kennedy, David N., Poline, Jean-Baptiste, and Poldrack, Russell A.. 2018. “Making Replication Prestigious.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 41. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X18000663.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hawley, Katherine. 2012. Trust: A Very Short Introduction. Very Short Introductions 325. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heesen, Remco. 2018. “Why the Reward Structure of Science Makes Reproducibility Problems Inevitable.” Journal of Philosophy 115 (12): 661–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horbach, Serge P. J. M., and Halffman, Willem. 2018. “The Changing Forms and Expectations of Peer Review.” Research Integrity and Peer Review 3 (1): 8. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41073-018-0051-5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kitcher, Philip. 1990. “The Division of Cognitive Labor.” Journal of Philosophy 87 (1): 522.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
KNAW (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences). 2018. Improving Reproducibility in the Empirical Sciences. Amsterdam: KNAW.Google Scholar
Munafò, Marcus R., Nosek, Brian A., Bishop, Dorothy V. M., Button, Katherine S., Chambers, Christopher D., Sert, Nathalie Percie du, Simonsohn, Uri, Wagenmakers, Eric-Jan, Ware, Jennifer J., and Ioannidis, John P. A.. 2017. “A Manifesto for Reproducible Science.” Nature Human Behaviour 1 (1): 0021. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-016-0021.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
NAS (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine). 2019. Reproducibility and Replicability in Science. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.Google Scholar
O’Connor, Cailin. 2019. “The Natural Selection of Conservative Science.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science A 76 (August): 2429.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pennock, Robert T. 2019. An Instinct for Truth: Curiosity and the Moral Character of Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smaldino, Paul E., and McElreath, Richard. 2016. “The Natural Selection of Bad Science.” Royal Society Open Science 3 (9): 160384. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160384.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sorkin, Barbara C., Kuszak, Adam J., Williamson, John S., Hopp, D. Craig, and Betz, Joseph M.. 2016. “The Challenge of Reproducibility and Accuracy in Nutrition Research: Resources and Pitfalls.” Advances in Nutrition 7 (2): 383–89.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Strevens, Michael. 2006. “The Role of the Matthew Effect in Science.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science A 37 (2): 159–70.Google Scholar
Ware, Mark, and Mabe, Michael. 2015. “The STM Report: An Overview of Scientific and Scholarly Journal Publishing.” DigitalCommons, University of Nebraska, Lincoln. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/scholcom/9.Google Scholar
Williamson, Timothy. 2000. Knowledge and Its Limits. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Zwaan, Rolf A., Etz, Alexander, Lucas, Richard E., and Donnellan, M. Brent. 2018. “Making Replication Mainstream.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 41. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X17001972.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed