The Inability to Reproduce Effects Is Not Just About Psychology

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Psychology is one of the most harmless fields for this to be true, compared to molecular biology or medicine. There are always reasons why something might not have been done exactly the same. In other cases, since we in psycholog and other social sciences, we use this sort of arbitrary cut off that something is significant if it's below point o five. The difference between a point o six and point o four is not itself significant, but it would categorically place one in the failed replication and one in the successful replication.

David and Tamler return after an end of summer hiatus to finally talk about the ethics of deception….eventually. But first they break down a recent article in the journal Science documenting an attempt to replicate 100 recent psychology experiments. What does it mean that just over 1/3 of the studies were successfully replicated? Is social psychology in crisis or is this just how science works? Will David somehow try to pin the blame on philosophers?

Plus--a brief and almost certainly regrettable foray into the Ashley Madison hack, the neuroscience of lying to your kids about Santa, and we announce a new way to contact us to help celebrate our 75th anniversary.

Links

Authors, Shitload of (2015) Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science, Science, 39.
The Bayesian Reproducibility Project post by Alexander Etz [alexanderetz.com]
Harris, S. (2013). Lying. Four Elephants Press. Buy on Amazon
Bok, S. (2011) Lying: Moral choice in public and private life. Vintage, 2011. Buy on Amazon
Santa on the Brain by Kelly Lambert [nytimes.com]
James Randi (aka "The Amazing Randi") [wikipedia.org]
An Honest Liar [anhonestliar.com] (Available on Netflix in the U.S.)
The Honest Truth about Dishonesty [amazon.com affiliate link]
(Dis)Honesty – The Truth About Lies [thedishonestyproject.com]
Exit Through the Gift Shop [wikipedia.org]
F for Fake [imdb.com]