Science’s moral economy of repair: Replication and the circulation of reference

ABSTRACT

Responding to the so-called reproducibility crisis, various disciplines have proposed – and some have implemented – changes in research practices and policies. These changes have been aligned with a restricted and rather uniform conceptualization of what science is, and knowledge is made. However, knowledge-making is not a uniform affair. Here, we reflect on a salient fault line running through Wissenschaft (the whole of academic knowledge making, spanning the sciences and humanities), grounded in the relationship between the acts of research and writing, separating research as reporting from research as writing. We do so to demonstrate that replication and replicability cannot be treated as uniformly applicable and that assessment and improvement of research quality invites various tools and strategies. Among those, replication is important, but not omnipresent. Considering these other tools and strategies in context allows us to situate the value of replication for knowledge making as a whole.

KEYWORDS:

• Replication
• replicability
• epistemic pluralism
• research
• writing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Research on research is hardly new and finds its roots in the philosophy, sociology, history, and anthropology of science (De Solla Price 1965). Similarly, the pursuit of openness in scientific conduct and reporting can be traced back to, for instance, public witnessing of experiments (Shapin and Schaffer 1985). Finally, discussions on how to assess whether a research finding holds up are as old as research itself. Repetition, in its many forms, has always been an important part of that discussion.

2. Many frameworks for plurality in science have been proposed, ranging from paradigms and thought styles (Fleck [1935] 1980; Kuhn [1962] 1970) to epistemic cultures (Knorr-Cetina 1999, 1991). For an overview of (the history of) plurality in science, see Chang (2012).

3. See e.g., http://nanopub.org/wordpress/?page_id=65 (accessed 25 November 2019).

4. Some would argue plagiarism (we thank Matthias von Herrath, who reviewed this paper, for this point).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Fostering Responsible Research Programme, funded by ZonMW, project no.’s 445001005 (to BP) and 445001010 (to SdR).