Rinse and Repeat: Understanding the Value of Replication across Different Ways of Knowing

Bart Penders, J. Britt Holbrook and Sarah de Rijcke
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Bart Penders: Department of Health, Ethics & Society, School of Primary Care and Public Health (CAPHRI), Maastricht University, PO Box 616, NL-6200MD, Maastricht, The Netherlands
J. Britt Holbrook: Department of Humanities, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ 07102, USA
Sarah de Rijcke: Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS), Leiden University, PO Box 905, NL-2300AX Leiden, The Netherlands

Publications, 2019, vol. 7, issue 3, 1-15

Abstract: The increasing pursuit of replicable research and actual replication of research is a political project that articulates a very specific technology of accountability for science. This project was initiated in response to concerns about the openness and trustworthiness of science. Though applicable and valuable in many fields, here we argue that this value cannot be extended everywhere, since the epistemic content of fields, as well as their accountability infrastructures, differ. Furthermore, we argue that there are limits to replicability across all fields; but in some fields, including parts of the humanities, these limits severely undermine the value of replication to account for the value of research.

Keywords: Replicability; replication; reproducibility; reproduction; epistemic pluralism; accountability; humanities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A2 D83 L82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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