Reproducibility is everywhere recently, from the pages of scientific journals to the halls of the National Academy of Sciences, and today it lands in bookstores across the U.S. Longtime NPR correspondent Richard Harris has written Rigor Mortis (Basic Books), which is published today. (Full disclosure: I blurbed the book, writing that “Harris deftly weaves gripping tales of sleuthing with possible paths out of what some call a crisis.”) Harris answered some questions about the book, and the larger issues, for us.
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Retraction Watch (RW): Rigor Mortis begins with the story of the 2012 Nature paper by C. Glenn Begley and Lee Ellis that is now famous for sounding the alarm about reproducibility in basic cancer research. But as you document, this is not a problem that began in 2012. When did scientists first start realizing there was a problem?
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Richard Harris (RH): Some people cite John Ioannidis’s notable paper, published in 2005, titled “Why Most Published Research Findings are False,” but even in that paper he’s citing previous concerns. CK Gunsalus at the University of Illinois reaches back to Demosthenes (384-322 BC), who said “nothing is easier than self-deceit.” That’s clearly the nub of the problem. I’m actually not convinced it’s a crisis. What is new is scientists are increasingly aware of these serious problems. That’s actually good. Nobody wants science to spin its wheels, and recognizing a problem is the first step toward solving it.
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