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Can we all agree to not cite any study that a) doesn't exist, b) cannot be reproduced, or c) includes fake data?

For bonus points, the participants of the b) and c) options should be forced to pay back whoever funded their research.




What do you mean by 'cannot be reproduced'?

If I do a simple study where I flip a coin a million times and write down the result, you are unlikely to be able to reproduce the same result.


I'm pretty sure if we both flipped a million coins, our results would be very similar.


I think you and GP are using different metrics or definitions of "result".


Well, I'm mostly just saying that you have to be careful with your definitions. And you can't just randomly demand refunds from people.


In this context we would be talking about reproducing the experimental conditions and method. Obviously it is unlikely that someone else would get the same sequence you did.


Basically, the whole thing is a bit more complicated.

However, it's useful to require pre-registration and sharing of data etc for studies you plan to fund.

Ideally, you give researchers an in-principle approval, but then hold the funds in escrow and only disburse them after they published their data etc.

(Financial markets can provide the bridge financing between in-principle approval and actual disbursal.)

There's many journals that have open data requirements, but more often than not they are flouted. The above suggestion would give them real teeth.


In case you're not trolling: to reproduce a paper means to achieve the reported result within an acceptable margin through independent replication of the experiment. Since nobody is referring to a paper which reports one million coin flips, reproduction is not in question.




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