How Reliable is Psychology Science?
Is there a crisis in psychology science after a review found that only a third of studies were replicable? Can you use the word decimate to mean devastate? Tim Harford finds out.
The Reproducibility of Psychological Science project reported recently and it made grim reading. Having replicated 100 psychological studies published in three psychology journals only 36 had significant results compared to 97% first time around. So is there a problem with psychological science and what should be done to fix it.
Decimate
Tim used the word in an interview last week to mean devastate rather than cut by ten percent – many listeners said this was unforgivable – was it? We ask Oliver Kamm, author of Accidence Will Happen: The Non-Pedantic Guide to English Usage.
(Photo: Conceptual image of a brain. Credit: Shutterstock)
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