International Max Planck Research School on the Life Course, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin.
Department of Psychology, University of Leipzig.
Perspect Psychol Sci. 2021 Nov;16(6):1255-1269. doi: 10.1177/1745691620964106. Epub 2021 Mar 1.
Science is often perceived to be a self-correcting enterprise. In principle, the assessment of scientific claims is supposed to proceed in a cumulative fashion, with the reigning theories of the day progressively approximating truth more accurately over time. In practice, however, cumulative self-correction tends to proceed less efficiently than one might naively suppose. Far from evaluating new evidence dispassionately and infallibly, individual scientists often cling stubbornly to prior findings. Here we explore the dynamics of scientific self-correction at an individual rather than collective level. In 13 written statements, researchers from diverse branches of psychology share why and how they have lost confidence in one of their own published findings. We qualitatively characterize these disclosures and explore their implications. A cross-disciplinary survey suggests that such loss-of-confidence sentiments are surprisingly common among members of the broader scientific population yet rarely become part of the public record. We argue that removing barriers to self-correction at the individual level is imperative if the scientific community as a whole is to achieve the ideal of efficient self-correction.
科学通常被认为是一个自我修正的过程。原则上，对科学主张的评估应该以累积的方式进行，随着时间的推移，当天的主流理论会越来越准确地接近真理。然而，实际上，累积式自我修正往往不如人们想象的那样高效。个体科学家往往固执地坚持先前的发现，而不是冷静而无误地评估新的证据。在这里，我们在个体而不是集体层面上探索科学自我修正的动态。在 13 份书面陈述中，来自心理学不同分支的研究人员分享了他们为什么以及如何对自己发表的一项发现失去信心。我们对这些披露进行了定性描述，并探讨了它们的含义。一项跨学科调查表明，在更广泛的科学界成员中，这种失去信心的情绪非常普遍，但很少成为公开记录的一部分。我们认为，如果整个科学界要实现高效自我修正的理想，就必须消除个体层面上自我修正的障碍。
