Zimmer C. It's science, but not necessarily right. The New York Times June 25, 2011
As a series of controversies have recently demonstrated, science fixes its mistakes not so rapidly and fitfully. It usually takes a lot of time to look back over other scientists' work and replicate their experiments. Even when scientists rerun an experiment, and even when they find that the original result is flawed, they still may have trouble getting their paper published. The reason is that journal editors typically prefer to publish groundbreaking new research, not dutiful replications. The scientific community should put more value on replication.
As a series of controversies have recently demonstrated, science fixes its mistakes not so rapidly and fitfully. It usually takes a lot of time to look back over other scientists' work and replicate their experiments. Even when scientists rerun an experiment, and even when they find that the original result is flawed, they still may have trouble getting their paper published. The reason is that journal editors typically prefer to publish groundbreaking new research, not dutiful replications. The scientific community should put more value on replication.
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