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Comment by elcritch | Hacker News Reader

Presuming the original lab didn't also intentionally leave out important details to make it harder for others to replicate their research quickly. Why list all the details needed to replicate your research and possibly let other labs catch up and take your next grant? Much better to add a veneer of listing details but leave out a few of the really important ones.

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> Presuming the original lab didn't also intentionally leave out important details to make it harder for others to replicate their research quickly.

Is this common?

Well, half of DS and CS papers are like this: shallow descriptions, no public data, no code. And things are MUCH easier with computers!

Extrapolation to a more complex field tells me that it's a norm there.

how can extrapolation tell you anything if you don't know whether the extrapolation is appropriate, much less true?

Yup. Never read a non-CS paper in my life. This is why I used this word - extrapolation.

I am pointing out certain shady incentives in our field that might apply in another scientific field as well.

yeah, I was just asking why you thought it was appropriate to extrapolate (if you had any reason to believe that the shady incentives you mention, translate to a different field, versus them being completely different in this regard)

I heard from a chemistry researcher that it is also common in that field to give vague descriptions of synthesis procedures in order to allow authors to churn out more papers.

From reading online it feels that most important thing is to be first. And prevent anyone else even from potentially moving forward on your topic. The actual scientific progress is secondary.

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