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Comment by east2west | Hacker News Reader

This covers all issues surrounding reproducability pretty well. It is astounding that scientists want to hide behind their expertises when their results and conclusions are being tested. Biologists who are under a similar cloud tried the same tactics too. They have some secret sauce that make their lab and experiment special and unique, beyond the comprehension of mere mortals. Of course, as publically funded scientists they have a moral if not legal obligation to disclose their "secret sauce" if that is very important. Why publish a paper but leave the public in dark about the most important factor? At best it is an oversight, at worst it is dishonst.

Experiment and reason underpin the modern science. Common sense says inreproducible experiments call their colusions into question. Scientific experise is no escape from reason. A fancy degree from a "top" university does not make infallible anyone. Well controlled experiments are the final arbitrator.

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Am I being naive to think that scientific papers should be written in a way such that people outside the area of expertise can reproduce it? You shouldn't need to be a psychologist to run a psychology experiment. You shouldn't need to be a physicist to run a physics experiment.

Yes. You are being naive. You could reproduce rote aspects of the experiment. Not even all of them, you don't know how to calibrate some expensive lab equipment, its not the paper's job to explain that. And lots of things like conclusions and analysis take expertise. It's not about "being", its about having expertise. Papers say because foo, we conclude bar. If you have almost no idea what foo is, you just can't write that. It's not the paper's job to give you an introduction to physics or anything.

As much as I hate that sceintific papers don't give good introductions to the public, specialists do have their values. An educated, intelligent reader has limits when it comes to frontline research. It is like asking someone flying a 787 jetliner without touching an airplane before. Prior knowledge and experience are important.

What I absolutely reject is false exclusivity that some scientists hide behind. A professional statistician can spot statistical errors even if he or she never did any cancer study before. A rational person can discern the trustworth of a scientific report if enough details and background are well explained. I always find that popular press lacks a degree of healthy comptempt for specialists. It actually has improved somewhat recently. Still sometimes newspaper reports read like press release.

I accept that there is some skill and training required to run an experiment - particularly with hard sciences - but generally far less than is required to design it and analyze the results.

To extend your metaphor, it would be like saying that only people who design jetliners should be able to fly them.

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