Drawing on our experiences conducting replications we describe the lessons we learned about replication studies and formulate recommendations for researchers, policy makers, and funders about the role of replication in science and how it should be supported and funded. We first identify a variety of benefits of doing replication studies. Next, we argue that it is often necessary to improve aspects of the original study, even if that means deviating from the original protocol.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the literature on conspiracism, fundamentalism, and extremism, we find so-called vice explanations for the extreme behavior and extreme beliefs that they involve. These are explanations in terms of people's character traits, like arrogance, vengefulness, closed-mindedness, and dogmatism. However, such vice explanations face the so-called situationist challenge, which argues based on various experiments that either there are no vices or that they are not robust.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe term 'radicalisation' is relatively new. It is mostly the result of the political climate since 2005, but now widely used in work on extremism, fundamentalism, conspiracism, fanaticism, terrorism, and counter-terrorism. But exactly what is radicalisation and can we still properly use the term in the face of the many objections that have been levelled against it? I defend a conception of radicalisation that combines the fourmain approaches in the literature, the so-called monist and pluralist, as well as the absolutist and relativist ones.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIncreased execution of replication studies contributes to the effort to restore credibility of empirical research. However, a second generation of problems arises: the number of potential replication targets is at a serious mismatch with available resources. Given limited resources, replication target selection should be well-justified, systematic and transparently communicated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe assess Radder's criticisms of the and show that they either miss their mark or depend on controversial background assumptions about the purpose of the Code. Although Radder raises important questions about the broader roles and purposes of research in society, his conclusion that the Code should be revised in the ways he proposes is unjustified.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFundamentalist beliefs are often discussed in relation to extremist, radical, or fanaticist beliefs, or terrorist ideology, as well as in relation to terrorism, radicalization, and violent extremism. Besides, the notion is frequently defined and operationalized, for example in the field of psychology. Despite the frequent recurrence of the notion in the literature, no clear and agreed-upon definition exists.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis paper explores various relations that exist between replication and trustworthiness. After defining "trust", "trustworthiness", "replicability", "replication study", and "successful replication", we consider, respectively, how trustworthiness relates to each of the three main kinds of replication: reproductions, direct replications, and conceptual replications. Subsequently, we explore how trustworthiness relates to the intentionality of a replication.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBoth scientists and society at large have rightfully become increasingly concerned about research integrity in recent decades. In response, codes of conduct for research have been developed and elaborated. We show that these codes contain substantial pluralism.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis paper proposes a normative taxonomy by which universities can express the extent to which they meet five core epistemic responsibilities. Epistemic responsibilities are responsibilities that have to do with the attainment of knowledge and understanding. The core epistemic responsibilities, which we call the Big Five, are to (1) foster research integrity, (2) teach for intellectual virtue, (3) address the big questions of life, (4) give humanistic inquiry and education a proper place, and (5) serve society.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA large number of scientists and several news platforms have, over the last few years, been speaking of a replication crisis in various academic disciplines, especially the biomedical and social sciences. This paper answers the novel question of whether we should also pursue replication in the humanities. First, I create more conceptual clarity by defining, in addition to the term "humanities," various key terms in the debate on replication, such as "reproduction" and "replicability.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA strong version of scientism, such as that of Alex Rosenberg, says, roughly, that natural science reliably delivers rational belief or knowledge, whereas common sense sources of belief, such as moral intuition, memory, and introspection, do not. In this paper I discuss ten reasons that adherents of scientism have or might put forward in defence of scientism. The aim is to show which considerations could plausibly count in favour of scientism and what this implies for the way scientism ought to be formulated.
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