Why the Reward Structure of Science Makes Reproducibility Problems Inevitable
@article{Heesen2018WhyTR, title={Why the Reward Structure of Science Makes Reproducibility Problems Inevitable}, author={Remco Heesen}, journal={The Journal of Philosophy}, year={2018}, volume={115}, pages={661-674} }
Recent philosophical work has praised the reward structure of science, while recent empirical work has shown that many scientific results may not be reproducible. I argue that the reward structure of science incentivizes scientists to focus on speed and impact at the expense of the reproducibility of their work, thus contributing to the so-called reproducibility crisis. I use a rational choice model to identify a set of sufficient conditions for this problem to arise, and I argue that these…
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