As every schoolchild knows, science is founded on repeatable experiment, separating its theories from religion and mere opinion. Yet that is not what happens in practice. A recent study found that 80% of scientific papers are never replicated, and a majority of them turn out to be false. And if counter evidence to one of the major theories of science is uncovered it is often ignored or explained away.
Can we clean up science and ensure that results are reliable and assume all will then be well? Or is the issue more profound and we need to recognise that science is not objective and instead is built on the theories and beliefs of the researcher and not purely on experimental fact?
Professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine, and author of the most downloaded paper in history Why Most Published Research Findings Are False John Ioannidis, theoretical physicist and winner of the 2020 Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists for her theory of massive gravity Claudia de Rham and sociologist of science and author of Are We All Scientific Experts Now Harry Collins discuss the importance of replicability and objectivity in science.