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Comment by throwaway4aday | Hacker News Reader

What's the value in publishing something that is never replicated? If no one ever reproduces the experiment and gets the same results then you don't know if any interpretations based on that experiment are valid. It would also mean that whatever practical applications could have come from the experiment are never realized. It makes the entire pursuit seem completely useless.

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> What's the value in publishing something that is never replicated?

Because it presents an experimental result to other scientists that they may consider worth trying to replicate?

Then those unconfirmed results are better put on arxiv, instead of being used to evaluate the performance of scientists. Tenure and grant committees should only consider replicated work.

I don't agree. A published article should not be taken for Gods Truth no matter if it's replicated or peer reviewed.

Lots of "replicated" "peer-reviewed" research have been found to be wrong. That's fine, it's part of the process of discovery.

A paper should be taken for what it is: a piece of scientific work, a part of a puzzle.

It still has value if we assume the experiment was done by competent honest people who are unlikely to try to fool us on purpose and unlikely do have made errors.

It would be even better if it was replicated of course.

Depending on what certainty you need you might have to wait for the result of one or several replications, but that is application dependent.

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