Re:A new replication crisis: Research that is less likely to...
by dron57 on Saturday May 22, 2021 @06:41PM
(#27250899)
Your example of looking at a problem from more than one angle made me think of the problem of finding the Hubble constant that describes the rate of expansion of the universe. There are two recent methods which have different estimates for this rate of expansion.
PBS Space time has an excellent video on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72cM_E6bsOs
Re:A new replication crisis: Research that is less likely to...
by analog31 on Saturday May 22, 2021 @09:27PM
(#27251714)
Indeed, one of the things that's possible in physics is to nail down the experimental results to the point where, if two results disagree, you know that they really disagree, and that it's not just a statistical fluke. Then it gets interesting.
In physics, when a result raises more questions than it answers, we call it "job security." ;-)
The social sciences face the problem of not having so many different possible angles, such as quantitative theories or even a clear idea of what is being tested. Much of the research is engaged in the collection of isolated factoids. Hopefully something like a quantitative theory will emerge, that allows these results to be connected together like a mesh network, but no new science gets there right away.
The other thing is, to be fair, social sciences have to deal with noisy data, and with ethics. There were things I could do to atoms in my experiments, such as deprive them of air and smash them to bits, that would not pass ethical review if performed on humans. ;-)