How to Reproduce Negative Results

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Journalists want to be selective about what they publish. But when people do the hard work of replication, often those journals aren't interested. And lots of studies now show that there's huge bias against negative results. There has been a conversation in the scientific community about doing a better job of publishing negative results.

In this interview, based on her landmark book, Why Trust Science?, historian of science Naomi Oreskes offers a bold and compelling defense of science, revealing why the social character of scientific knowledge is its greatest strength — and the greatest reason we can trust it. Drawing vital lessons from cases where scientists got it wrong, Oreskes shows how consensus is a crucial indicator of when a scientific matter has been settled, and when the knowledge produced is likely to be trustworthy.