• WhatIsH2O4@lemmy.ml
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    7 months ago

    Counterpoint: the scientific method is much simpler than you described.

    1. Fuck around
    2. Find out
    3. Write it down

    The rest are details of the above or elitism.

    • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I think the sticking point is this: if people can’t reproduce it then you missed writing down an important detail and therefore didn’t finish step 3.

      The elitism is thinking peer review suffices for reproducibility.

      • WhatIsH2O4@lemmy.ml
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        7 months ago

        I agree with you last point, and I really, really want to with the first.

        Sometimes science feels more like an art, for chemistry at least. I suppose the counter-point to this is: if you provide sufficient detail to reproduce but your results are still difficult to reproduce reliably by others, then your process wasn’t very robust and should have undergone more development before publishing. Those details may be so minor that you don’t even realize that you overlooked something.