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Re:Reproducibility trial: 246 biologists get different resul... by RandomLensman on Friday October 13, 2023 @07:59AM (#37869609)
Not surprised, given the rather vague question asked in relation to the data (e.g., "how does x influence y") - many choices from there.
Re:Reproducibility trial: 246 biologists get different resul... by light_hue_1 on Friday October 13, 2023 @08:14AM (#37869728)
That's what research is. It's not homework. No one defines the question for you. You just become curious about some relationships.

If they had asked very specific questions the whole study would be meaningless.

The questions they asked are spon on: "To what extent is the growth of nestling blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) influenced by competition with siblings?" and "How does grass cover influence Eucalyptus spp. seedling recruitment?"

Re:Reproducibility trial: 246 biologists get different resul... by RandomLensman on Friday October 13, 2023 @08:18AM (#37869764)
I disagree for a study on replication, as people having different interpretations is totally fine then but not really related to replication as such. Many valid answers here to the questions. They studied comprehensiveness or something like that.

Imagine in chemistry they had asked to synthesize a compound given a range of inputs and then see a variety of yields based on different synthesis approaches.

Re:Reproducibility trial: 246 biologists get different resul... by mcphage on Friday October 13, 2023 @08:12AM (#37869716)
Phrased as "how does X influence Y" makes it sound vague, but I think that the question they asked would be better phrased "to what degree does X influence Y"—they got results which varied along a continuum, but not in random different ways. So the actual questions themselves weren't vague, and the researchers all treated it as meaning the same thing, they just came up with different degrees in the results.
Re:Reproducibility trial: 246 biologists get different resul... by RandomLensman on Friday October 13, 2023 @08:20AM (#37869772)
But how does that really relate to replication? What they found out is more like: with interpretability come different results.
Re:Reproducibility trial: 246 biologists get different resul... by mcphage on Friday October 13, 2023 @08:42AM (#37869929)
I agree (and said as much in another comment). The different groups didn't come up with different effects, they came up with different magnitudes of the same effect. This doesn't seem like a replication crisis.