Chris Chambers > Quotes

“Schnall’s strong reaction to the failed replication of her own work provoked a mixed reaction from the psychological community. While many psychologists were bewildered by her response, a number of prominent US psychologists voiced support for her position. Dan Gilbert from Harvard University likened Schnall’s battle to the plight of Rosa Parks, and he referred to some psychologists who conducted or supported replications as “bullies,” “replication police,” “second stringers,” McCarthyists, and “god’s chosen soldiers in a great jihad.” Others accused the so-called replicators of being “Nazis,” “fascists,” and “mafia.” Rather than viewing replication as an intrinsic part of best scientific practice, Gilbert and his supporters framed it as a threat to the reputation of the (presumably brilliant) researchers who publish irreproducible findings, stifling their creativity and innovation”
― Chris Chambers, The Seven Deadly Sins of Psychology: A Manifesto for Reforming the Culture of Scientific Practice

“In many life sciences, including psychology, discovery isn’t a black-and-white issue; it is matter of determining, from one experiment to the next, the theoretical contribution made by various shades of gray. When psychologists set arbitrary criteria (p<.05) on the precise shade of gray required to achieve publication—and hence career success—they also incentivize a host of conscious and unconscious strategies to cross that threshold. In the battle between science and storytelling, there is simply no competition: storytelling wins every time.”
― Chris Chambers, The Seven Deadly Sins of Psychology: A Manifesto for Reforming the Culture of Scientific Practice

“In the battle between science and storytelling, there is simply no competition: storytelling wins every time.”
― Chris Chambers, The Seven Deadly Sins of Psychology: A Manifesto for Reforming the Culture of Scientific Practice

“One recent case highlighted by Dan Simons relates again to the work of Yale psychologist John Bargh. In 2012, Bargh and colleague Idit Shalev published a study claiming that lonelier people prefer warmer baths and showers, thereby compensating for a lack of “social warmth” through physical warmth.44 In 2014, psychologist Brent Donnellan and colleagues reported a failure to replicate this finding—and not just in a single experiment but across nine experiments and more than 3,000 participants, over 30 times the sample size of the original study.45 Despite this failure to replicate, as well as the presence of unexplained anomalies in the original data, Bargh and Shalev refused to retract their original paper. In many other sciences, a false discovery of this magnitude would automatically trigger excision of the original work from the scientific record. In psychology, unreliability is business as usual.”
― Chris Chambers, The Seven Deadly Sins of Psychology: A Manifesto for Reforming the Culture of Scientific Practice

“A critical reader of any method section should be asking not only whether the reported procedure is sound but also whether it provides sufficient details to be repeatable. Unfortunately, an additional source of unreliability in psychology lies in the systematic failure of studies to disclose sufficient methodological detail to allow exact replication.”
― Chris Chambers, The Seven Deadly Sins of Psychology: A Manifesto for Reforming the Culture of Scientific Practice

“If we take a science such as experimental physics, where studies tend to have high statistical power, methods are well defined and de facto preregistered, then the failure to reproduce a previous result is considered a major cause for concern. But in a weaker science where lax statistical standards and questionable research practices are the norm, attempts to reproduce prior work will often fail, and it should therefore come as no surprise that retraction is rare.”
― Chris Chambers, The Seven Deadly Sins of Psychology: A Manifesto for Reforming the Culture of Scientific Practice