Blogs

Reproduction and replication of research findings can improve the quality and reliability of research. The recent credibility crisis in the field of psychology, has sparked a huge discussion on the reliability of research findings in all fields and critics have expressed strong doubts over replicability of published research. It should be safe to assume that the original data and programming code from a published article would replicate the results presented.

Imagine you wake up tomorrow with a headache, sore throat and fever, perhaps nothing unusual at this time of the year. You drag yourself out of bed and head to your doctor to ask her for something to make you feel better. However, if you had first looked up your symptoms on the net, you would have been surprised to find that headache, sore throat and fever can be caused by 136 different conditions, among them typhoid fever, measles, and brain tumour.

Bridging divides, be they across ethnicities, religions, politics or, indeed, genders, is never easy.  There have been many books written about them, including some that made millions – for example, John Gray’s idea that men and women come from different planets, Mars and Venus respectively, is apparently the best-selling hard cover non-fiction book ever. One shouldn’t begrudge them because the payoffs – domestic or planetary peace – are high indeed.