Colaço David, Bickle John, Walters Bradley
Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, LMU Munich, Munich, Germany.
Department of Philosophy and Religion, Mississippi State University, Starkville, USA.
Biol Philos. 2022;37(5):39. doi: 10.1007/s10539-022-09873-y. Epub 2022 Sep 2.
Scientists often respond to failures to replicate by citing differences between the experimental components of an original study and those of its attempted replication. In this paper, we investigate these purported . We assess a body of failures to replicate in neuroscience studies on spinal cord injury. We argue that a defensible mismatch explanation is one where (1) a mismatch of components is a for a mismatch of outcomes, and (2) the components are in the follow-up study, given the scope of the original study. With this account, we argue that not all differences between studies are meaningful, even if they are difference makers. As our examples show, focusing only on these differences results in disregarding the representativeness of the original experiment's components and the scope of its outcomes, undercutting other epistemic aims, such as translation, in the process.
科学家们常常通过列举原始研究的实验组成部分与其尝试复现研究的实验组成之间的差异，来回应复现失败的情况。在本文中，我们对这些所谓的差异进行调查。我们评估了一系列脊髓损伤神经科学研究中的复现失败案例。我们认为，一个合理的不匹配解释是：（1）组成部分的不匹配是结果不匹配的一个原因；（2）考虑到原始研究的范围，这些组成部分在后续研究中是可辩护的。基于此，我们认为并非研究之间的所有差异都是有意义的，即使它们是造成差异的因素。正如我们的例子所示，仅关注这些差异会导致忽视原始实验组成部分的代表性及其结果的范围，在此过程中削弱了其他认知目标，如转化。
