Raw Data: How Widespread is the Problem of Irreproducible Results?

Last week in the first installment of “Raw Data,” my new monthly column for the New York Times, I reflected on what has become known in science as the problem of irreproducible results. The fear that the corpus of scientific knowledge is becoming polluted with questionable findings -- experiments that cannot be replicated by other laboratories -- has become so great that the journal Naturehas promised to implement new measures “improving the consistency and quality of reporting in life-sciences articles” and has compiled an eye-opening archive called “Challenges in Reproducible Research.” The concerns are arising not just in epidemiological studies -- where some effect (a drug, food, behavior, or an environmental contaminant) is correlated positively or negatively with human health -- but also in bench research. This is the science of petri dishes and chemical reagents, with subjects ranging in complexity from human cells to genetically altered mice. For me ...